Need help pulling data out of mysql into a multidimensional array - php

Question

I am pulling data out of a data base. As I seem to be having trouble with arrays and multidimensional arrays I need some help.
In the database I am pulling the following information:
id, platoon, name, position, status
I need to put all of this into an array.
As there are over 150 names, with many holding the same position.
here is the code I am using:
$sql='SELECT id, position, platoon, name, status FROM ost_platoon_assignments';
$users=db_query($sql);
$num=db_num_rows($users);
while ($row = db_fetch_array($users)) {
$info = array(
$row['position'] => array(
$row['platoon'] => array("name" =>$row['name'], "status" => $row['status']),
),
);
}
I want to list via a table by those in a particular position:
example:
<table border="1">
<?
foreach ($info as $position => $names) {
echo "<tr>";
echo "<td> {$position} </td>";
foreach ($names as $name) {
if ($name[name] =="") {$name[name] = "Vacant"; }
echo "<td class=\"status{$name[status]}\"> {$name[name]} </td>";
}
echo "</tr>";
}
?>
</table>
What am I missing? When I run this it only gives me the last entry.
Thanks for your help

Answer 1

You are overwriting the value of $info with each iteration of your while statement.
If you want to store all your data in array structure like this:
$info = array(
'general' => array(
array( /* general 1 */ ),
array( /* general 2 */ ),
array( /* general 3 */ )
),
'colonel' => array(
array( /* colonel 1 */ ),
array( /* colonel 2 */ ),
),
// .....
)
Then use a process like the following: (Note I'm using PDO, you could also use PHP'S mysqli, but use one of these instead of PHP's mysql library which is deprecated).
$conn = new PDO("mysql:host=$hostdb; dbname=$namedb", $userdb, $passdb);
$result = $conn->query('SELECT id, position, platoon, name, status FROM ost_platoon_assignments');
$info = array();
while ($row = $result->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
$info[$row['position']][] = $row;
}
You can then loop through each user by position like this
foreach ($info as $position => $users) {
foreach ($users as $user) {
// ....
}
}

Answer 2

It should be
$info[] = array( ..... );
^^-----
instead. Right now you're continually OVERWRITING $info with every result row being retrieved. The [] notation will PUSH the new row onto the $info array, instead of simply replacing what was there previously.